The Itch

 

I’ve got an itch. Nothing metaphorical

It’s on my foot. The middle bit. 

The palm? The small?

No, that’s backs. 

The instep? Maybe. I don’t know. 

I only know it itches like a thousand bitches

And I know it shouldn’t scratch it but

It makes me think I might go mad and
It would be so good to rip off its stupid face and

It doesn’t have a face

I know

It’s just a bit of me

A place that, for some reason, has decided

My attention should be divided by its

Ticking, pricking, son of a bitching

Endless itching

I said it wasn’t metaphorical

But a part of me thinks, what is its genesis?

I mean, I see things in a way

You might call holistic

Mind and body interconnected

Emotions just as strong a part of how

My physical responses pop and crack

So if there’s pain, what’s the real cause?

Am I sublimating guilt or grief?

Am I anxious in a way I can’t perceive?

Is the foul distraction, there, beneath my sock

My body’s way of telling me to stop and take stock?

Or is it just because we changed washing powder?

I’d forgotten we’d done that

It’s probably that.

Now everything itches.

Stuck On You

 

A girl once accidentally glued herself to my heart

And we found it impossible to become

Unstuck

There was no easy way to tear ourselves apart

A girl… no, not a girl. A woman

Though I saw her as a girl, it’s true

Perhaps that was part the problem

And not really the glue

And obviously not really “glue”

We’re being figurative, of course

I’m trying to find a metaphor for something difficult to escape

What I mean is, less like glue, 

More like sellotape

Yeah, sellotape

For the art the endeavour

Was like trying, seemingly forever

To brush the tape from the right hand and

Finding it adhered firmly to the left hand’s fingers.

And then the same back, and then the reverse

The act of attempted removal became

The method by which adherence grew more firm

And we tried to peel the thing apart

But the whole thing was a mess

And things stretched out and tangled up

And we couldn’t find the end

And so the girl tore her self away

The only escape from our sticky situation

Not a girl, a woman, who

Through no fault of her own

Became the object of my Fixation

Back Home From the Holiday

 

In retrospect, it probably wasn’t a real lightsaber

That I held in my small hands

That sad, grey Saturday

After we got back home from holiday

I mean, I know it wasn’t real-real

I was young, but I sort of understood

That the Jedi and their like

Were a long, long way from 1970s Bradford

If it had been real-real I would, for sure,

Have cut the cat in half

Or sliced off my own foot

Or at the very least badly damaged the wallpaper

No, I mean that

The illuminated plastic tube

With it’s chunky red torch for a handle

Probably wasn’t official 20th Century Fox merchandise

I was 8 and I did not care

I waved the gently glowing stick

In a gentle infinity loop

In the darkness we’d created on the stairs

It was beautiful thing

Handed down to me, like Luke’s

His from his father, me from my mum

His to battle galactic evil

Mine so I might feel a little less glum

On this sad afternoon

When the wild tumbling golden heat of sand dunes

And the ice cold joy of waves over my bare feet

Were gone for another year

And here we were, back on our street

The lightsaber didn’t hum

Didn’t retract when the fighting was done

But it cast enough light to illuminate a young boy’s face

Helped him forget that the holiday was far, far away

And it cut through time, to today

Years after the batteries rusted and the

Plastic bent out of shape

A memory of a kindness and

A warmth that endures

Every time a holiday comes to an end

Are We Becoming Friends?

 

The wine tastes great so I pour myself some more

Never taking my eyes off your lips as you talk

The air between us bubbles with the joy

Of stories that are new

Of personalities at full force

You are a spark, an overwhelming thing

A series of patterns that coalesce in

Firework blues and neon blossom pink

Exploding in slow motion trails after your hands

It’s impossibly beautiful, and so of course

Lazy synapses trigger

"Here comes true romance," they sing,

Something bigger than the regular emotional response

Loads of different pleasure chemicals firing at once

But I’ve been here before

And so I pause 

The glass at my mouth

The aroma of wine dark and hesitant 

As I breathe slowly in

These are well worn paths

Grooves into which I easily slip

Songs I don’t even notice I’m singing

Love, maybe, yeah

But love is a word 

Translated from a dozen different languages

A place where roads meet from a scattering of cities

Destinations as unlike each other 

As time is from space

As flirtation is from confidence

And as friendship is from romance

Where we are, sitting here,

Illuminated by low lights and the coming on of night

Is not a place unto itself

More a possibility space

We can choose to set off in any direction

I pour you more wine

Try to slow myself down

Stroke the curved edge arc of my glass

And let this moment 

Unfold in real time